My Star Wars Marvel Comics variant cover for M&M Comics came in the mail today, so here’s my first look at it:

My New Star Wars variant cover for Marvel/retailer M&M Comics

If you’re not one of the 5k people already following me on my personal Facebook page, you might enjoy seeing my new “Art Director” as Denise calls her – our newest addition to the family, Jonesy the Cat. Yes, she is a Sphinx/Hairless Cat, to accommodate the allergy sufferers in our household (not me).

Me and my new “Art Director.”

And speaking of science fiction-related stuff, I’ve been chatting with Facebook friends about how excited I am to see Philip K. Dick’s “The Man in the High Castle,” which is available online now, I believe, for free. It imagines what life would be like if the Nazis had been successful in overtaking the U.S. After I read it, I was unhappy with the book cover because it didn’t really represent what the book was about, so back in the 1980s, I painted this one:

My 1980s painting inspired by Philip K. Dick

Dave Dorman Official 2015 Appearance Schedule (So Far):

January 29 – 31 = Salt Lake City Con

February 21 – 22 = I’m teaching a class at the International School of Comics in Chicago

Also, I should mention that Denise and I are mentioned (with some of my art) in the new issue of Imagine F/X magazine for January 2015, if you happen to pick it up. And here is a link to pick up my WASTED LANDS OMNIBUS, published by Magnetic Press, if you are interested in dystopian action adventure in another world similar to ours – it’s my creator-owned I.P. and my favorite thing I’ve ever worked on, which is saying a lot!

Cards and Games!! These are my topics for a Happy Cyber Monday, Everybody!

I am throwing this quick blog together since you’re on the computer anyway ordering your Holiday gifts. I have two pieces of news to mention this time around:

Many of you know that I play the online game Star Wars: The Old Republic (aka SWTOR) nightly. It’s a wonderful adventure/fighting game with a great feel for the Star Wars universe. You can be a Sith Warrior, a Republic Commando, and even a Jedi! I really enjoy my hours spent in the world of “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away!” (And a quick shout-out to my guildmates in PURGE on the “Bastion”server!)

So here’s what happened: SWTOR has a robust array of costuming and armor supplies for your character. I opened the game a few weeks ago and noticed new armors added to the game. And there was one set that looked very familiar. It was Ulic Qel-Droma from “Tales of the Jedi,” which was a character I designed for Dark Horse and painted on quite a few TOTJ Comic and graphic novel covers. Below you will see one of my paintings (TOTJ #1) with Ulic Qel-Droma, and dropped in, you will see the character screen shots from the game. Nice job and a huge honor, SWTOR designers!! (And SWTOR design team, if you ever need more costume, creature, or character designs I’m just an email away!)

My second piece of news is also game-related! DRIVE THRU CARDS is now offering exclusive Dave Dorman art standardPoker deck cards! Talk about the perfect stocking stuffers! The first set is available now for just $7.99 per deck (plus postage), featuring my cover art from the WastedlandsRAIL Graphic Novel!

You can order directly from Drive Thru Cards here. I will be adding new card decks with my artwork in the next few weeks, so keep watching here for me to post the news. I have the proof set in my hands, and the quality is superb.

Make sure to soak your fingers in Palmolive after all your Cybershopping activity today! Thanks all, be well!

First, a warm thank you to all who came by to see me at Detroit Fanfare last weekend. Also, a belated Happy Halloweento all of you. With my love for horror, it’s one of my favorite holidays of the year, and I can honestly tell you it’s even more fun when you’re a dad. For my many Indian friends, I wish you a Happy Diwalithis weekend. We will be celebrating Diwali with our Indian friends at our home on Sunday. This may be the first brunch where I’ve had to forgo bacon, but I’ll take one for the team for friends.

Okay, here’s where I’ll be this weekend, most relevant to those of you who will be in the Chicagoland area this weekend:

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2nd:

2 p.m. – 4 p.m. – BLICK ART SUPPLIES, 79 Danada Square East Shopping Center, Wheaton, IL. I’ll be doing a live painting demo and I invite you to join me, take video, take pictures, learn my tips and techniques. I want to do a fun horror piece tomorrow to celebrate the season. Here’s their link with a map: http://www.dickblick.com/stores/illinois/wheaton/

4 p.m. – 6 p.m. — Dinner, somewhere…with my family & friends…

6:45 p.m. – Whenever our son starts getting whiny – Kosart Effects Studios & Gallery, 760 Burr Oak Drive, Westmont, IL for the annual, critically acclaimed horror art show, MALEFICIUM, curated by my longtime friend J. Anthony Kosar, whom you may know from his big win last season on SyFy Channel’sFACE OFF competition.This is a must-attend show if you love great art and great horror art. I have two pieces in this particular show. Here’s a link to more info on this really fun show:http://www.kosartgallery.com

WASTED LANDS GAME UPDATE:

I wanted to also share with you an update on my WASTED LANDS game, IRON WARS. We are currently designing the train game pieces for the board, courtesy of my Z Brush friend Dave Taylor of Imagination Rendered in Valparaiso, Florida. In terms of game play, we received great reviews from the game testing we did at GenCon and we believe it’s ready for prime time. Now I am doing the art for the trading cards.

I had a GREAT time at the DISCOVERY MUSEUM in Milwaukee with my 501stfriends last weekend teaching people how I do what I do. (And yes, I AM available to give this lecture, teach demos, and do Q&As for your large group or students – for inquiries please contact my wife/publicist denise@writebrainmedia.com). Here’s an image from my lecture:

Me teaching how I created this art at DISCOVERY MUSEUM, MILWAUKEE

Tomorrow through Sunday: I will be at Detroit Fanfare, and I will be a presenter for the ShelDorf Awards, so hopefully I’ll catch up with many of you at either event. Here’s a link for more information: http://detroitfanfare.com/

Saturday November 2nd: I will be teaching an art demo at BLICK ART SUPPLY in Wheaton, IL. This makes up for the one I had to miss earlier this fall.

This day also marks the grand opening of my friend J. Anthony Kosar’s MALEFICIUM DARK ART Exhibiton:http://www.kosartgallery.com/2013-maleficium-dark-art-exhibition.html– the grand opening is 1 p.m. – 10 p.m. on the 2nd, but the exhibit is available to tour by appointment only from 11/2 – 11/30. You may recognize Anthony as he was a winner on last season’s SYFY show, FACE OFF. His f/x makeup is incredible, and if you are interested in learning from him, he teaches classes! Check him out1

Saturday November 3rd:Happy Diwali to my many Indian friends, and we celebrate my son’s 9th Birthday!

For a few weeks in November and possibly into December, things will be a little nutty here as I’m having a new studio built over the garage, so if I delay in getting back to you on something urgent, ping my wife/publicist at denise@writebrainmedia.com or call her at (630) 845-4694.

If you want to catch my daily comments/musings/mutterings, you can catch me here:

I thank all of you who came to see me at C2E2. It’s always good to see familiar faces at the show. It was great to reconnect with many of my friends there and some winners of the Writers & Illustrators of the Future Awards as well. One key business dinner meeting resulted in some exciting news about my own action-adventure western series The Wasted Lands and I look forward to sharing that news when I can. Suffice it to say there will be plenty of new Wasted Lands material to see at my Booth #4500 at San Diego Comic-Con this year.

Image of M. d’Cease, the sexy, bad-assed coroner of Mortal City in Dave Dorman’s Wasted Lands.

I did a 2-part interview at Hypno Comics in Ventura, CA a couple of weeks ago with owner George Chase, and a special thanks to Jeffrey Willerth at SliceofSciFi.com for everything he did to create the piece. In this interview, George & I discuss the state of the comics industry and what I, as a traditional artist, really think about digital art, and the deficits I see in a lot of younger artists — deficits that can be fixed if they’re aware of them. Here’s a link to that interview: http://bitly.com/17DN5qj

My next big show is Spectrum Fantasy Art Live in Kansas City May 17th, 18th and 19th, so I look forward to reconnecting with my artist friends and fans there. I will have some original art pieces there that aren’t typical of what you’ve seen from me in the past. Here is a link to information on that show: http://bitly.com/ZHfkTm

Today I deliver my painting to our close family friends, the Haleys, and their lovely daughter Lauren, who patiently posed for this piece I did for the Visions of Oz Gallery Show in Los Angeles, curated by Taylor White:

There are a couple of Kickstarter campaigns you might want to check out, if you’re interested in supporting them. I am providing artwork for British magazine TRIPWIRE’s21st Anniversary Issue of their Magazine. I think you’ll recognize my work in the graphic below. That link is here: http://kck.st/10Ic33G

TRIPWIRE 21st Anniversary Magazine

The second Kickstarter campaign I have no connection to, other than I think it’s cool and a game-changer for all of the model and prop making friends and enthusiasts (like me) who follow me here. These guys have created a fail-proof plug & play special f/x kit for your models and props – everything from batteries & lighting to smoke to sound f/x. Check that out here: http://kck.st/XxshQn I really hope they get funded. Again, this is a game changer.

Next weekend I will be joining friends Larry Elmore and Kevin J. Anderson in L.A. judging the Writers & Illustrators of the Future Awards. I am told it’s televised in L.A., so if you want to catch me looking uncomfortable in a monkey suit (that is, tux–I won’t be dressing in a Planet of the Apes costume, which it just occurred to me you might be expecting), please tune in.

Right now I am finishing up a labor of love – a story for Dave Elliott’sMONSTER MASSACREbook that will feature my protagonist motorcycle zombie character, HITCH, which some of you may remember from my book, the Bram Stoker nominated, Int’l Horror Guild Assoc. winner in 1996 from Mojo Press, “DEAD HEAT.” Unfortunately we (Del Stone Jr. and I) were way ahead of the times, writing about zombies before the production world caught on to their money-making potential. Publisher’s Weekly said“Hitch, the protagonist of this gonzo post-apocalyptic fantasy, may be the most outrageous superhero ever conceived for the printed page: a meathook-wielding zombie whose exertions repeatedly challenge him to overcome the limitations of his deteriorating body.”

I will be exhibiting in Artist’s Alley at C2E2 this year in Chicago, so I hope you can come out. Reed Exhibits does a really solid job with this show and it’s quickly becoming the Comic-Con of the Midwest, so check it out. I have to dig up my table #, so watch for me to post that on Facebook – my fan page is http://facebook.com/davedormanfanpage, so please “Like” my page when you get a moment. I am at my 5k limit with friends on my personal FB page, so my apologies for that inconvenience.

Lastly, if you are interested in being one of the “Lucky 10” at “THE DAVE DORMAN EXPERIENCE” this year, please write to denise@writebrainmedia.com for your reservation. Cost is $350 and I blogged about all of the fun swag you will receive, including the potential of winning a fresh Dave Dorman painting, in the last blog post, so check that out. We will need to know your answer quickly, as it takes a while to get t-shirts made.

Here’s a map of where you can find me this year at San Diego Comic-Con. For those who come back every year, it’s my “normal” location. Sharing my booth this year will be Blackwatch Comics (artist Christopher Shy and writer Michael Easton) so please be sure to check out their goth fantasy SOUL STEALER: The Collector’s Edition and NORTH END OF THE WORLDbooks as well.

DAVE DORMAN #SDCC BOOTH #4500

DAVE DORMAN #SDCC 2012 SIGNING SCHEDULE:

Thursday, July 12th, Noon – Booth #2913E– During the “Frak Out” Battlestar Galactica event, I will be in the ANOVOS Booth at the Lucasfilm Pavilion for the unveiling of my first-ever Battlestar Galactica (2004 series) fine art painting. I believe this is happening at noon.

Friday, July 13th, 8:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m., Room #8 —I will be on a panel moderated by MTV Geek’s Bradley Hatfield, celebrating the 35th Anniversary of Heavy Metal, the first publisher to print one of my pieces of cover art. Here’s a description:

The panel will give fans a chance to peek behind the curtain for an incredible hour of conversation with Kevin Eastman as he and many of the iconic artists reflect on the history of ground-breaking storytelling as well as letting the audience in on plans for the future. Guests include: Kevin Eastman (Heavy Metal, Co Creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Michael Mendheim (Mutant League Football, Creator of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Dave Elliott (Sponge Bob, Heavy Metal, Ninja Gaiden), Lorenzo Sperlonga (Heavy Metal, Steampunk Dolls, Poison Apples), Dave Dorman (Heavy Metal, Star Wars, Rolling Thunder), and Joe Pearson (Director of War of the Worlds: Goliath, Epoch Ink Animation).

Okay, that’s everything I know about at the moment. Please feel free to email or comment on Facebook.com/DaveDormanFanPage if there’s anything you need. Any journalists/bloggers/reporters trying to reach me, please contact my publicist Denise@WriteBrainMedia.com or call her at 630.215.5623.

I raise a toast for an entertaining, fun, safe SDCC for everyone this year! Let the games begin!